Hey, "Woman Within", What Don't You Get?

Dear "Woman Within",

 First, I've loved your catalog over the years for a number of reasons. Your clothes are comfy, as soon as you realize they are sized larger than the market in general does. For example, your 1X is their 3X. It's flattering,  There is room in the sleeves for baggy arms, the kind we older folk get after losing weight. Those droops never quite go away, do they?

When I hit your sales, which are the only way I shop your catalog, the prices are decent. Not super, but decent. The colors match other items with the same color name, closely enough that one could suspect a single dye lot. On the whole, similar types of colors blend with others nicely, and prints work with solids perfectly. 

Your seven day knits are so comfy, soft, and wrinkle free. Unless I've been very sloppy, I really can wear them seven days, provided I fold them over a chair or something. No wrinkles!

However, there have been some changes. Some are on me. I moved, and now you are sending catalogs to four different addresses. Only one is correct, the one you last sent clothes to. The rest are a waste of paper, time, expense, and the patience of people who live at those addresses. Perhaps your marketing research shows that you get a new customer from, say, a hundred catalogs erroneously mailed out. Even so, your system needs fine tuning.

My lifestyle has changed a bit. Not  just to a different climate, which resulted in my latest order a few months ago, when for the first time in my life I ordered a down parka. On sale, of course. Still quite expensive even so, of course. I realize much of your sales tactics occur when I - or every customer - calls in their order. I have to try to be patient and not rude the the poor employee who is required to offer temptation after temptation, bonuses if we buy X, extra Y if we buy two more, discounts ("Today only!" for every day) if we add Z to our purchase. Your employee is allowed no common sense response to me, the customer, saying I only have $_____ budget at the moment and cannot afford X,Y, or Z, much less anything else, even if  it is free! Before we hang up, there is always that next offer you are sure I won't, can't refuse. 

Surprise! I can. And do. You''re predictable, and I'm ready. Sometimes even patient. Sometimes grumpy however.

But there has been another change recently, and this one is totally on you guys. I recently ordered some more seven-day knits, the long pants with both elastic and drawstrings in their waistbands. I love those - in principal - because the drawstrings stand up to years of use, and I can continue to wear pants I've shrunk out of or which may have lost elastic integrity in the laundry, thanks to those drawstrings, long after when other pants would have to have been tossed or donated. Seriously, I used to use old diaper pins, to keep big pants up, but everybody is into disposable diapers these days, so new pins are hard to find.

However... your quality has just dropped on those. I never had to worry about stitching, for example. The machines they were sewn on had a kind of lock stitch so a single pulled thread didn't pull far, and didn't keep unraveling. New cheaper machines, guys? New contractors? I can no longer simply transfer pants to hanger fresh from the dryer. I have to examine all the seams, and most often, mend a couple. This means both time and a purchase of color-matching thread.

ANNOYING!!!! 

On top of that, a tiny catch in the fabric itself now also leads to a long thread pulling out, leaving a hole which itself will ravel more. I used to live in cactus country, and that never happened. Now? A merest bump snags.

EVEN MORE ANNOYING!!!

I still have shorts from your former seven day knits from years ago, my very first purchase. They no longer fit by 3 sizes, and the fabric is not so smooth, but they hold together beautifully, and with those good drawstrings have been converted to the most comfortable jammy bottoms I've ever found. I couldn't possibly do that with anything from this newest lot of long pants, bought end of last winter, and mostly sitting in a closet until recent cool weather. Every one has running snags somewhere! The old ones get the same kind of use and care, and their much aged integrity still holds just fine.

If you want my business again, prove you've brought your quality back to its former level. You won't accomplish that by sending me a new catalog every week, or by combining yours with several other companies' worth of throw-away paper. The local composting center doesn't really need all that extra volume, and that's where it all will be going. Unread. Unloved. Undog-eared. Untempting.

Meanwhile, I'll be spending whatever spare time I can find working on mending my NEW pants from last spring. And hunting for somebody else's really warm sweatpants with drawstrings and POCKETS, which don't break or unravel threads every time I look at them! 

That money could have been yours.

Respectfully..... sort of.